So, since people discuss a lot of religion and theology here, I have a difficult question to make

So, since people discuss a lot of religion and theology here, I have a difficult question to make.

Recently I've started to adhere the Catholic Church, I'm having confirmation classes in order to receive my First Eucharist.

However, there is a thing that is biting me, what is the deal with Catholics with statues and other "icons"? I thought it was symbolic worship, but last mass the Priest of my parish was talking about some "holy icon" visiting our church and how we should pay respect to it.
I personally felt disappointed and offended, since I do not plan kiss any statue believing it contains any sanctity or holiness. Especially when the Bible is specific on this kind of worship.
And yes, I'm talking about the image of pic related, which is supposed to be miraculous.

inb4
>but moses brazen snek
>but the ark of alliance
well, there is no comparison, God himself instructed the Hebrews to craft these vessels, it is not a thing that occasionally happened to be sacred.

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youtu.be/5P2miTZCsno
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Although icons themselves are traditionally more associated with the Orthodox Church, the Catholic Church's stance on iconography, statues, etc. is that they're a valuable tool for helping worshippers focus (and focus on) their prayer to the subject. They're a worship aid, like rosaries or prayer cards. As for relics of a saint, they're also used as a prayer aid to help focus on praying for the saint to intercede with God on our behalf - we're not praying TO the saint, we're praying for the saint to put in a good word.

They're supposed to be treated with respect because it would not only be disrespectful (not a sin per se, but definitely not in good taste) to mistreat an image of Christ/the Virgin Mary/a saint, but many times those specific icons have also been blessed by a priest or bishop. If the icon in question is being associated with miracles, then it'll be similar to how a saint's relics are used: treated with reverence because God worked His will through them, but not worshipped of their own merit.

Just make sure to practice the negrus feetus (our most holy catholic sacrament) every day all day and that refugee's rights trump national security.

Praise Mary and Muhammad.

Oh and kiss the holy Koran as well.

Good answer.

It's people like you that kill this board.

I totally comprehend that we are not praying TO the saint but FOR the Saint.
I am for the VENERATION of the Saints, while the exclusive ADORATION is for God.

However, I've seen a quite different thing in practice, like for example, people adoring the icon as it had any holy properties, as if it contained some piece of the saint it represents in itself. (well, I live in Latin America, so it may be a thing of the Latin American Christianity, that adopts unorthodox forms of worship)

I do not mean to disrespect because I have absolute no faith in it. For me it is what it is: a hollow product of a human craft. Even if it is a craft of a human of great faith and sanctity.
In a way, the relationship between arts and faith is important to inspire worship, but considering such artistic representations as relics probably takes this relationship to a new, dangerous level.

Am I Lutheran already?

go shill somewhere else.

It's idolatry. Pure and simple.

This is why I would never recommend Nazarene worship to any gentiles. Just follow the Seven Laws of Noah and you will be fine. If you live up to the covenant G-d has made with Noah, HaShem will embrace you and put you to rest with Him in the World To Come.

Certainly statues and images are idolatry and, according to the Holy Scripture, they all have to be destroyed

>I am for the VENERATION of the Saints, while the exclusive ADORATION is for God.

So you understand latria and dulia. There's no problem, then.

It's likely that you're just weirded out by how other people venerate relics and icons. No one is actually worshipping them outside of super fringe (read: not Catholic) syncretic sects.

the pope is the antichrist

Given that you haven't committed to it yet, I implore you to reconsider. There's nothing holy or right about placing faith above truth. It's against human nature and damaging to the soul; repent unless you actually believe in hebrew mythology for reasons sturdier than "well I was told to just believe it ".

The memory of Socrates holds that the unexamined life isn't worth living. Part of the spirit of Socrates is acknowledging you might be wrong, and working through that in pusuit of the truth. NOT faith.

1.CATHOLICS ARE NOT CHRISTIANS, YOU ARE LEARNING TO BECOME A PSEUDO-JEW.

2. CATHOLICISM IS THE RELIGION OF THE MATERIALIST DAGON-FISH, DO NOT ACT SURPRISE WHEN YOU ARE ASKED TO WORSHIP SNAKES.

3. YOU ARE AN IDIOT.

This is a really good answer I think. Adding to it, one reason given for the benefit of statuary and religious iconography is to keep the focus of worship on God. There is a risk that when praying some might turn their focus inward to the self searching for some feeling to confirm their interaction with God. The various prayer aides help in avoiding the pitfall of turning inward when prayer should be an outward expression of worship to God.

>1.CATHOLICS ARE NOT CHRISTIANS, YOU ARE LEARNING TO BECOME A PSEUDO-JEW.
A Christian is a person who adheres to the doctrines and practices of Christianity, believes in the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth and follows his teaching reported by the Gospels.
Yes, catholics are christians. It's just that they have beliefs that differ of you.

>2. CATHOLICISM IS THE RELIGION OF THE MATERIALIST DAGON-FISH, DO NOT ACT SURPRISE WHEN YOU ARE ASKED TO WORSHIP SNAKES.
Dragon fish ? Do you mean the leviathan ?
>3. YOU ARE AN IDIOT.
Insulting peoples will not make them more eager to listen to you.

EVEN MORE IF IT'S IN ALL CAPS.

Just ignore the screaming Mexican

Yeah Latin American Catholicism can get folksy and weird.
My mom used to make me pray so some Saint of Guadalupe or something whenever I wanted to find something I had lost.

Why is it that the Jehovah's Witnesses always have the same style of artwork in their pamphlets?

>However, I've seen a quite different thing in practice

With plebs.

>Recently I've started to adhere the Catholic Church, I'm having confirmation classes in order to receive my First Eucharist.
Literally why.
For what sane reason.

>the papacy has changed its alleged unchangeable doctrine multiple times

>It's against human nature

>Literally every society on Earth has had religion up until the 20th Century
Religion is the most human thing of all you fucking philistine

youtu.be/5P2miTZCsno

I comprehend very well the difference between these things.
However, like i said, my concern is to what I see being practiced inside the church.

The weirdest thing about it is that we know why the ROMAN CHURCH (probably exclusively) practices it: because it is a following from Roman Paganism, where people used to have a home altar, with some figurine of a goddess or perhaps the emperor himself.
Looks like Catholics simply absorbed this anti-biblical practice and changed the name of the figurines. (for example, early Jesus statues were basically the same as Apollo statues)

Pretty much every native church practices it, the Greeks, Egyptian etc, but they all have slightly different rules on the issue. The east tends to be strict because of the Iconoclasm controversy, so limiting it to stylized images was a kind of compromise

Im a bible fundamentalist and there is no religon on earth that I hate more than catholicism, like you said Op they are idolitors, along with that, Jesus specifically said "call no one father for you only have one in heaven" catholics go out of their way to call their priest their holy father, they call the pope their connection to God on earth totally disregarding the accomplishment on the cross, they pray to saints , they WILL accept homosexuality eventually , they will probably accept Islam eventually. OP idk if you are actually searching for God but the catholic church is run by the spirit of the anti christ, you should avoid it.

Pius XI reign ended long ago and every 'pope' following him has been heretical as hell.

Luther was right.

And yet you worship a collection of books that your hated catholics compiled.
How does that work?

>books that your catholics compiled
False.

Can we keep discussing what OP asked? It's a thread about the veneration of the icons in catholicism, not about Luther not about other theology stop killing the board
Subhumans

pr*testants are akin to rabid dogs, in both savageness and simple-mindedness
so unless you figure out a way to isolate them from the board you'll just have to deal with it

Funny, when Luther's last recorded quote from his deathbed was "I was wrong"

That's right..about the Jews, not about the heretical Vatican.

>The Reform was a mistake. It is nothing but trash. Those who identify as 'protestants' sicken me deeply.

- Martin Luther, in his deathbed.

Luther should had been the Pope. Imagine what Christendom would look like then.

They aren't fucking icons
Yes, an icon can be holy. Stop being a rationalizing pseud.
No, you are not 'worshiping' it. You are giving it respect. Maybe if you weren't an uppity little teenage shit you'd pay your grandparents some respect, too.

>Stop being a rationalizing pseud.
fides et ratio, bro.

Protestant does not come from protesting against the doctrines of the Catholic Church. This is a common misconception.
John Eck destroyed Luther's theological arguments and humiliated him at Leipzig in 1519. Luther was forced to admit that his arguments were heretical and no legitimate theologian took Luther seriously after that. In 1521, the Edict of Worms was issued condemning Martin Luther and his teachings. In 1526, the Diet of Speyer suspended the Edict of Worms and allowed Luther to preach his heresy under the protection of six German princes. In 1529, a second Diet of Speyer lifted the suspension of the Edict of Worms and again prohibited Luther from preaching. The six princes signed a letter of protest to the Emperor, requesting that the original Edit of Worms remain suspended. The word Protestant comes from the protest of the princes to the civil authority. It was not a protest to or against the Church.

Luther the reformer was right, in that the Church was corrupt in the same way that the Church is corrupt today and had a significant support from the pious German middle class. Most of the clergy (who were mostly members of the nobility) were only interested in money and making their lives more comfortable.

The reformation was about taxes and had little to do with religion. The Emperor had raised taxes to fight the French for control of Italy and the Turks in the Balkans. The German princes and middle class burghers did not see why they should pay for these wars that were so far away from their lands. They simply did not want to pay taxes to the Hapsburg Emperor, much the same as the American rebels did not want to pay taxes to protect King George's family holdings in Hanover against the French. They saw Luther as an opportunity to rebel and cloak their tax rebellion behind a facade of self righteousness.

That's a Pagan lie that was introduced to make Catholicism seem kool teh kidz

I started to realize one thing about Catholics, whenever you question something about their faith they just come in and say stuff like

>oh, so you are questioning? you must think you are very clever to question eh? your arrogant questioning prick, if you were a little more mature and less brainwashed you wouldn't be questioning

It is funny, it is so irritatingly funny. It is like they don't need to think their faith because their bishop already thought for them.

This religious "reform" also allowed the princes to steal church land, under the pretense of ending corruption. This led directly to the German Peasant's War of 1522 which was caused by the dissolution of the monasteries. The monks had given food to local peasants. Now the princes were selling it for money. The starving peasants rebelled. Luther called for the princes to slaughter the impermanent rebels. This reinforced his position with the princes, but he lost most of his popular support among the lower classes.
The princes formed the Schmalkaldic League in 1531 and held out until 1547. The Emperor defeated the heretics, but then negotiated away his victory in the name of unity and compromise in the Peace of Augsburg, which formally recognized the Lutherans. The Emperor Charles V later realized his mistake, resigned in 1556 and retired to a monastery.

The pre-Trent convents and monasteries were different than the Franciscans and Dominicans that we are familiar with. Some religious houses were very pious, but many were not. Often younger sons were forced into the monastery by their families.
There was also a class distinction among the monks. Upper class monks who could read and write worked in the library or scriptorium, while lower class monks worked the fields or kitchens and were essentially servants to the upper class monks. The number of lower class monks were restricted while the families of the upper class monks had to pay the monastery. Runaway monks were common and the civil authorities would arrest them and return them. The same was true for the convents.
When Luther and the Princes disbanded the monasteries, these upper class ex-monks and nuns became his greatest supporters. Very few parish priests defected.

From what I know of Luther, he seems to have been caught up in his own celebrity and his writings became more radical as he was egged on by his supporters. Later in life he seems to have retracted some of his earlier positions and was probably always Catholic, and a hypocrite in the truest sense of the word.

>The reformation was about taxes and had little to do with religion.
wrong, it was already proven in consensus by the intellectuals of Veeky Forums that the Reform was actually a Turk plot to divide Europe and empower the Caliphate.

>lmao thinking urself is good becuz reddit sed it
Fuck off

>The weirdest thing about it is that we know why the ROMAN CHURCH (probably exclusively) practices it: because it is a following from Roman Paganism

That's not really the case, though. You start to see the veneration of the first saints and martyrs of the early church predating icon/relic veneration, which naturally followed after some time. And like said, different churches adopted the same practice independent of Rome or Roman Paganism.

>things no one said

nice meme

I am from a mostly catholic country and have always wondered
why the fuck would anyone give a shit about the pope?
what places him above than any other man?

Supposedly the heir of Saint Peter, himself the supposed heir of Jizoos, son of gawd.

Is this what passes for humor on leddit?

I am from a mostly catholic country and have always wondered
why the fuck would anyone give a shit about the bible?
what places it above any other book?

I am from a mostly catholic country and have always wondered
why the fuck would anyone give a shit about god?
what places him above all the other gods?

I am from a mostly catholic country and have always wondered
why the fuck would anyone give a shit about Jesus?
what places him above any other men?

Hint: You're not allowed to ask questions. The only answer will be a picture of a fedora or someone saying "It doesn't make sense, fuck your logic, you just HAVE to believe it". [spoiler]People either believe in the religion they were born into and told it's like that as a child and they stick with it or they pick what they think is the most interesting as if reality and truth is something you can pick depending on how much you fancy it[/spoiler]

tip tip

...

The Bible strictly forbids idolatry (Leviticus 26:1; Deuteronomy 5:9). God alone deserves to be bowed down to and worshiped. Icons are not intercessors before the throne of grace, and neither are the saints they represent. People in heaven do not have the power to hear our prayers or grant our requests. Only Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit can intercede for us before the Father (Romans 8:26–27, 34).

>why the fuck would anyone give a shit about the bible?
>what places it above any other book?
Because they think it's from teachings given to mankind by God, or through divinely inspired people. That doesn't mean it's free from human error, though.

>why the fuck would anyone give a shit about god?
>what places him above all the other gods?
Because they believe there's only one all-powerful God. There are no 'all others' for Him to be put above, because He's the only one.

>why the fuck would anyone give a shit about Jesus?
>what places him above any other men?
Because they believe he's also the Son of God and the Messiah, sent to save the world from sin.

Of course, this is all entirely dependent on believing in God in the first place. If you don't believe in God, then the rest of it is pointless to you by extension. But if you do, then that gives the rest of it meaning.

YUP XD !

Pro tip: spoiler only work on /a/ /v/ Veeky Forums /vr/ /vp/ /co/ /jp/ Veeky Forums /mlp/ Veeky Forums and /tv/ ~desu~

>OP starts a thread looking for theological arguments on the nature of veneration of saints and relics
>most posts are about proties and catholics insulting each another

I'm not railing against theology, I'm railing against christian faith. I believe in God and support various forms of worship and organisation.

I spoke out here to warn the OP that it is a big mistake to commit to catholicism. The reasons I gave do not bar someone from studying theology or participating in religious practice. That other people have made the mistake of converting to Abrahamic religion is not a particularly convincing argument. Zalmoxis tricked the Thracians, too, but forgive me if I don't have faith in him.

You lie.
>catholic tactics

>logic is good beuz reddit sed it
Reality and truth don't exist, redditor. Stop psychobabbling and go back to worshipping your icons of modernity.
But wait that actually means reading something and thinking for myself to come to the conclusion of quietism THATS TOO HARD I WOULD RATHER REPEAT WHAT I HEARD ON REDDIT AND YOUTUBE

I can't tell if this post is ironic or unironic.

It's post-ironic.

Plüb.

Read John of Damascus.
Ok, books that the ancient sees compiled.
Still doesnt have anything to do with you.